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Pro-abortionists shout down pro-life Canadian MP at University of Waterloo

Mar 15, 2013

By Dave Andrusko

Pro-life Canadian MP Stephen Woodworth

Pro-life Canadian MP Stephen Woodworth

On Thursday we wrote about “Criminalizing Dissent in the guise of decriminalizing abortion,” a proposed bill in Tasmania that, according to Mishka Gora, may be the “most draconian abortion law anywhere.” This is not about making life merely difficult for pro-lifers there but stifling dissent with the threat of huge fines.

On Wednesday, Canadian pro-life MP Stephen Woodworth was delivering  a speech about the universality of human rights at the University of Waterloo when he was shouted down by protestors. “I couldn’t outshout the shouters,” Woodworth said, according to the National Post. “I’m not there to engage in a shouting match.” He added it is “a mark of extremism to take disrespect of others as a virtue.”

NRL News Today readers know Woodworth best for his attempt to persuade the Canadian House of Commons to establish a parliamentary committee to study the Criminal Code’s definition of a human being. In the context of defining homicide, Canada’s Criminal Code says a child “becomes a human being within the meaning of this Act when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother.”

Although the measure failed and can’t be revived in this session of Parliament, it is noteworthy that Motion 312 secured 91 votes, a lot in Canada. Moreover, some members you might not expect to vote “yes” did so. While Prime Minister Stephen Harper predictably opposed the effort (a “private member’s bill”), 10 cabinet members, including Status of Women Minister Rona Ambrose, backed the motion.

Woodworth gave an interview after the interruption to the National Post’s Joseph Brean. (He had completed about a third of the speech before a protestor commandeered the  podium.)

“What we’re really getting at is at what point do we say that an individual has equal worth and dignity,” Woodworth told Brean. “You can’t do that arbitrarily, you can’t do that without regard to the nature of the individual… Would you be justified in taking someone’s life simply by pretending they weren’t a human being?”

The protestors were dressed in an assortment of garb intended to shock, belittle, and ridicule Woodworth whom the protestor at the podium denounced as “Kitchener-Waterloo’s Nastiest Misogynist.” Other signs were, predictably, coarse and vulgar.

Ellen Rethore, associate vice-president of communications and public affairs at the University of Waterloo, said the disruptive behavior was “unacceptable,” and that a joint inquiry would be held. “Our goal is to ensure an environment of tolerance and uphold the right of individuals to advance their views openly,” she said.

But according to Brean, “Ms. Rethore, for the university, could not say what sanctions a student might face for disrupting the lecture, other than to say that ‘silencing of anyone who proffers an opinion is totally unacceptable.’” She also said Woodworth was welcome back and that the school would prevent a repeat.

The one bright note is that Woodworth told Brean that after the speech was cancelled and the protestors removed, “he was able to stay and have a discussion with a few people.”

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Categories: Politics